The Letter
by SciFiRN
Summary: It's been a month...Cassie gets a letter. Fourth in a series of one shots. Might help to read: The Black Dress, Just One Heart With No Alibis and Live Without Passion and Maybe You'll Know Peace. Don't have to, but still it might make more sense.


It was a month to the day she'd seen him last. The letter was in the middle of her mail and it caught her eye immediately. Her name written in Dean's blocky, messy print, below it her address neatly printed. She stared at it, threw it into a basket on the table and tried to forget it.

Forgetting didn't work, even after a long cry in the shower and a couple glasses of wine, she remembered it, remembered everything…his touch, his words, his tears. Opening that letter would make it real. She knew it would only confirm what she already knew. Dean was gone.

With a curse, she pulled herself from the chair and stalked to the kitchen. She pulled the envelope from the basket and then went to refill her glass with more of the dark red wine. Carrying both, she returned to her chair and curled her feet beneath her. She stared at the scrawl of her name and unbidden a small smile tweaked her lips. A sip of wine and she set the glass aside as she fingered the flap of the envelope.

Tears filled her eyes. The act of separating the flap from the envelope seemed so final. Cassie closed her eyes and saw him smile behind her eyelids. Bittersweet memories flowed through her thoughts as the tears began to flow down her cheeks; she left both unchecked as she slid a fingernail beneath the gummed flap.

There were two pages the first written in the same neat print as her address.

_Cassie, _

_I found this letter. I thought you should have it even though I'm sure Dean never meant to send it. I'm sorry it took me this long to mail it. I found it just after, well just after Dean died, but I couldn't let it go._

_I'm sorry,_

_Sam Winchester_

Cassie sobbed as she tucked Sam's note behind the second sheet of paper. This one covered in Dean's messy handwriting. She paused to wipe her eyes, so she could read the letter.

_Cass,_

_Hey. Wish I had good news for you, but I don't. I'm dead, yeah that's a great way to tell you huh? Figure you knew something like this was coming when you left the motel. I heard you, you know. I wasn't asleep, couldn't sleep knowing I was gonna fucking die in less than eighteen hours._

_I meant it when I said things were fucked up, but then me and you always kinda were, weren't we? I hated that about us. Wish we could've had one of those happily ever after things, hell after all I deserved something good in my life. Well, something good other than Sammy._

_You know I think you're the only woman I ever actually loved. Don't laugh, I mean it._

Cassie paused to wipe at the tears that were falling rapidly onto the letter in her hands, smearing the ink and drying to leave the page spotted. Sobbing she wiped at her eyes and then picked up the note.

_I mean really loved Cass. I think we could've been good together, don't you think so? I mean the whole thing; house, picket fence, two point five kids and a dog? You ever think about that? Ever wonder what if?_

_Yeah, me neither…not like that anyway, not really…not until I saw the last days of my life go by so fast it's hard to understand that this is it. I'm walking that Green Mile… My last day…last sunset…last sunrise…last time I get to see you, touch you. _

_Hell, I'm scared. Me, Dean Winchester, scared. I'm scared to close my eyes because I might miss something I've never seen or will never see again. I'm scared to look Sam in the eyes. I don't want to face that pain, know how much he hurts inside. He thinks I don't know it, but I do. _

_I hate that I'm the cause of it. It's my job to keep him safe, make sure nothing hurts him and every time I catch that look in his eye I know it's my fault. Those damn eyes of his, they make me feel like I'm dead already. I might as well be, I feel fucking dead inside knowing what I'm doing to him, to Bobby…to you._

_Not that you're ever going to see this, but I needed to tell someone. By the way, thanks for coming Cass. Thanks for wearing that damn dress. Thanks for not saying a thing while I cried like the girl Sammy is…ha! Shit, that's still funny!_

_Well, I won't be seeing you again. Thanks for the goodbye, I couldn't have asked for better. Wish things could've been different. _

_Take care._

_Dean_

Cassie finished her wine and cried. Eventually she fell asleep, curled into the chair; the letter clutched to her chest and she dreamed. Dreamed of a house with a white picket fence, a black Impala parked in the drive.


End file.
